Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

Gremlins 2: The New Batch is the sequel to Gremlins (1984),
one of the films that took over the box office during the summer of 1984. Now
that summer was a good one! At the box office we had Indiana Jones and the
Temple of Doom (1984) fighting for the top spot with other huge money makers
like Ghostbusters (1984), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), The
Karate Kid (1984) and Purple Rain (1984). Still, in spite of this tough
competition, Gremlins went on to make huge bank. Joe Dante had established himself as a
director of successful films like Piranha (1978) and The Howling (1981), but it
was with Gremlins that he had his first huge hit. A sequel was a no brainer;
unfortunately, Dante didn’t want to revisit the grueling experience of making a
film like Gremlins. The studio went on to plan a sequel without Dante’s involvement (Gremlins go to Mars!) but since for whatever the reason, it never materialized, they approached Dante yet again offering
him a bigger budget and cart blanche with the project, this is to say, he could
do with the film whatever the hell he wanted; and that he did my friends, this
film is pure Joe Dante every step of the way.

Joe Dante, next to one of the many Gremlins in Gremlins 2: The New Batch

The story centers once again around Billy and Kate, the two
teenagers who confronted and destroyed the Gremlins on the first film. This
time around, Billy and Kate are young adults and have moved from the small
suburban town they lived on in the first film, to New York City! They both work
in Clamp Plaza, an ultra modern building where everything is computerized!
Meanwhile, as fate would have it, Gizmo The Mogwai gets sent to a bio
engineering lab in the very same building! It isn’t long before Gremlins start
reproducing, turning monstrous and destroying everything in sight! Will Billy
and Kate have what it takes to stop these creatures before they escape the
building and wreck havoc on New York City?

Gremlins 2: The New Batch is obviously a larger picture.
Where the first film was an 11 million dollar picture, this sequel had 50
million dollars to work with. To the films favor, I will say that you do see
the money up there on the screen, there’s literally thousands of Gremlins on
this film tearing up the place. If you take a look at the first film, the
gremlins are virtually indistinguishable from one another. But on Gremlins 2
they employed the talents of makeup effects guru Rick Baker. This is the guy
responsible for making each Gremlin in Gremlins 2 different from one another; Rick
Baker is the reason why we get Vegetable Gremlin, a Gremlin who talks, a female Gremlin, a can’t
stop the laughter Gremlin, we get a Spider Gremlin; we even get an electrical Gremlin made up of
pure energy! These variations make this sequel way more fun than the first. So
yeah, this film is way bigger than its predecessor, we don’t only get more Gremlins, we also get a large amount
of cameos on this one. This is one of those films filled with cameo after cameo,
which of course makes everything that much more fun.

And speaking of fun, it seems that this was Joe Dante’s goal
with this sequel, to make it funnier than the first one which in contrast
played out more like a horror film. Honestly, this is where the first film is
superior to this sequel in my book. What I loved about the original one is that
it’s a bit darker in tone than this sequel, which is so bright, goofy and
colorful by comparison. Gremlins 2: The New Batch feels like a live action
Warner Brothers cartoon, which makes perfect sense when we take in
consideration that Joe Dante is a true blue fan of the old Warner Brothers
Cartoons, the ones with Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny . This is evident
by the many slapstick gags that Dante squeezes into the film, the whole vibe of the film is cartoony; this
is really what sets this sequel apart from the first film. The first Gremlins
film is so much more of a horror film. By the way, Chris Columbus the writer
behind the first film, had written a far gorier and scarier picture then the
one we got. Columbus’s script had the Gremlins killing people in gory ways, but Dante and Spielberg softened the film up a bit because Spielberg himself thought
the film had to be as family friendly in order for it to be successful. Still, even with the
modifications to the script, the first Gremlins film has its scary moments. So
much so that, along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the first
Gremlins film was the reason why the PG-13 rating was created. The film
wasn’t all that scary, but it wasn’t all that innocent either, so the PG-13 was
created as a middle ground for films of this nature. But when compared to the
first Gremlins film, Gremlins 2: The New Batch isn’t even remotely scary; it’s simply, goofy, cartoony fun.

The only negative thing I can really say about this movie is
that it starts out like a normal film, with a story and everything, but
somewhere along the line it turns into a series of vignettes or sketches if you
will, with the Gremlins causing all sorts of mayhem. The film even gets a bit
surreal and other times it turns into a musical? What I didn’t enjoy is that
this sketchy nature of the film hurt it, because you don’t feel as if you’re
watching a film, you feel more like you’re watching a series of gags. Yeah they
are fun gags, but this sequel isn’t like the first one, which did feel like a
true blue genuine film. Still, Gremlins 2: The New Batch has many good things
going for it, mainly the creature effects which are still awesome by today’s standards;
in fact, I love how the Gremlins are all real and palpable. These were
amazingly animated puppets. I’m pretty sure if they made one of these films
today, every Gremlin would be computer generated, and that would suck for me.
But, thankfully, Gremlins 2: The New Batch is an amazing display of puppetry
and creature effects. These Gremlins simply look awesome; the puppets seem full
of life, Kudos to the puppeteers behind these creatures.

Finally, what makes this film so fun for me is that special
brand of Joe Dante humor. There’s this unique kind of humor to his films that
always puts a smile on my face. Dante’s
love for WB cartoons is very present here; the film even starts out with Bugs
Bunny and Daffy Duck fighting for the spotlight! All of Dante’s films are
infused with this goofy, cartoony nature of the WB cartoons. This is after all
the director behind Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003). Many of Dante’s films
have some kind of reference to these old WB cartoons; they were obviously a
huge part of his upbringing. Final word? This is a fun film, it moves at a fast
pace, something is always happening on the screen and well, Dante really ups
the ante ; on this one we get more
Gremlins than ever! The film has awesome monster effects, things get slimy and
nasty, if you love those films from the 80’s that were always filled with
slimy, gooey creatures, then this is the film for you. You’ll also find the
huge amount of cameos entertaining, Christopher Lee, Rick Ducommun, John Astin, Leonard Maltin, even
Hulk Hogan makes an appearance. Just don’t expect much of a story, this film
plays out more like a series of gags one after another, still, this doesn’t
make it any less entertaining, Gremlins 2: The New Batch though not superior then the original, is a worthy sequel in
my book.

4 comments:

jimmie t. murakami
said...

I actually thought Gremlins 2 was even better than the original but because there was 6 years between the 2 movies the American movie going public (in all their fickle and hypocritical glory) didn`t agree and the movie was a relative failure at the box-office. That seems to happen so often, a sequel is obviously superior to the original but because the novelty value of the first film is wearing thin already the public turn their noses up at the movie (relatively speaking) and it doesn`t go at the box-office the way it should.

Ghostbusters II (1989) is another classic example from almost the same time, i thought it was marginally better than the original but it only made just over half as much at the box office ($111 million) that the original had made 5 years earlier in `84 ($212 million). That summer of `89 the American movie going public instead went 'en masse' to see Tim Burtons ludicrously over-rated Batman with Jack Nicholson (a film that i`ve always regarded as virtually unwatchable, no kiddin`) and other laughably mediocre movies like: Honey, i Shrunk The Kids, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Back to the Future II, Dead Poets Society, and Lethal Weapon II. Ghostbusters II was easily better than any of them.

Thats a great example Jimmie, I remember going to the movies that summer of 89, loving the hell out Ghostbusters II and then baffled at the fact that it wasn't a hit? But yeah, lesson is: don't take so long to make your sequel, audiences might disconnect.

That was the summer of Batman, everywhere and anywhere you looked ti was the Bat symbol somewhere, be it on a t-shirt, or a haircut, or whatever! Burtons Batman was a sensation, it took over audiences, any other films beside it where going to go down....sadly, Ghostbusters II was one of the casualties, I love Ghostbusters 2 myself, I think it's such an underrated sequel. The visual effects were really something.